Israel pushes on in a mad world

Like Tuesday’s remarkable appearance of Israeli tanks in the centre of Rafah, Thursday’s announcement that the Jewish state has regained control of Gaza’s vital land border with Egypt indicates steady but significant progress towards the twin goals of destroying Hamas and rescuing the remaining hostages. It may be, as Israel’s National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi warned, that fighting is likely to continue to the end of the year. But that does nothing to diminish the importance of Israel’s success in advancing into the heart of Hamas’s last stronghold and imposing “tactical control” on the 14km so-called Philadelphia Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border.

The border, which has not been held by Israel since 2005, has been described as “Hamas’s vital oxygen pipeline” for smuggling weapons to the terrorists. So far, according to military authorities, 20 cross-border tunnels – all of which have played a vital role in resupplying the terrorists – have been uncovered. Their loss is likely to prove a major new blow to the ability of the four battalions of fighters that Hamas is relying on to hold Rafah against Israel’s advances as it seeks to take control without crossing Washington’s red lines over civilian casualties. That the Biden administration says that, so far, it is doing so, despite last Sunday’s airstrike targeted at two terrorist leaders that tragically ignited a blaze that killed 45 civilians, needs to be noted by governments across the world, including Australia’s, as the advance into Rafah continues.

Delusional claptrap like that heard in parliament on Wednesday when four lower house Greens MPs and Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie supported a motion demanding recognition of Palestinian statehood are about as far removed and unhelpful as it is possible to be from the on-the-ground reality of what is happening in Gaza, and what is needed to bring an end to the suffering of its people.

So weird and irrational has the world become over Gaza, however, that as Alexei Demetriadi reports on Friday there is a sociology professor at Sydney University, Indian-born Sujatha Fernandes, who has been telling her first-year students that Hamas’s mass rape and sexual violence on October 7 was “fake news” and a “hoax” peddled by the media. Can she be serious? And what about the hapless students?

Amid the furore, however, it is reassuring that Israel is advancing steadily towards destroying Hamas – something that is vital for Israel, no less than it is for relieving the desperate plight of Gaza’s people.